Kiarostami’s portrayal of Kurds in ‘A taste of cherry’ and ‘The wind will carry us’

KurdishMedia.com - By Devrim Kilic

Introduction

Understanding of Kiarostami’s representation of Kurds and Kurdish landscape is important because it can provide a comprehension of how the “others”, in this case Kurds, are treated by a non-Kurdish director. Obviously Kiarostami has directed more than two films but these two films are the only ones in which Kurds have been represented.

It is said that Iran is a “multicultural” country and the existence of Kurds and other minorities is not denied; nevertheless this is not to say that there are no problems between the different cultures or between the state and minorities. Kurds constitute approximately 10 % of Iran’s population and the area that Kurds live in, part of western Iran is known as ‘Kurdistan’ in Iran.

It should be stated at first that A Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us are not films shot from Kurdish perspectives; they are not Kurdish but Iranian films. And I think just for that reason it is worth scrutinizing them in order to comprehend the portrayal of Kurdish people and Kurdish landscape in Kiarostami’s films. Analyzing Kiarostami’s depiction of Kurds and Kurdish landscape in his films would also provide an understanding of how the Persian majority of Iran see Kurdish minority, as Kiarostami is of Persian origin.

In Kiarostami’s films, A Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us, one can see different ethnicities and cultures of Iran, such as the Kurds, Afghanis and Azerbaijanis.

Kiarostami’s cinematic style has distinctive features and that is why famous film critics and academics from all over the world have written a lot on his films and cinema. He is accepted as a one of the living masters of contemporary cinema. Mostly shot in open spaces, his films do not give all the information about the characters and story, and there are always some ambiguities. Describing his cinema as “half-finished film”, Kiarostami leaves much room for the interpretation of the audiences. (Cheshire, Cineaste) Therefore when analysing Kiarostami’s films for the portrayal of Kurds one has to make a great deal of individual interpretations of the films.

Before going into close analysis of the two films, I would like to state that although there are lots of articles, books and interviews about Kiarostami’s cinema, what is interesting is that not many critics talk about the function or meaning of Kurdish village as a location or the importance of Kurdish characters. As a matter of fact the choice of location and characters play a central role in creating the meaning of a film. The director’s preference of location and characters ethnicity and his/her representation of these elements, provide significant clues about the theme of the film, and the director’s stand towards the issue that the film deals with. “For the filmmaker, location plays a significant role in creating narrative space…A closer look at the locations filmmakers use and the way they represent them reveals their positive or negative attitude toward them. (Vafa. 200) Also certain location and certain characters might have political meaning for the film and filmmaker. That is why I think it is crucial to examine Kiarostami’s two mentioned films in terms of his treatment of character and location in order to reveal his representation of Kurdish people and Kurdish landscape.

In the following sections, this essay will provide close textual analysis of the two films separately in terms of the use of Kurdish village and Kurdish people.

A Taste of Cherry

Shot in 1997, A Taste of Cherry tells the story of amature aged man, Badi, who is desperatelylooking for someone to help him in committingsuicide. Badi drives his car around the outskirtsof Tehran and encounters first with a Kurdishsoldier then an Afghani worker and lastly anAzerbaijani taxidermist. To me Kiarostami’srepresentation of Kurdish soldier and hisdescription of Kurds via Badi, the lead character,are significant for it reveals Kiarostami’s idea and his treatment of Kurds. The young Kurdish character is portrayed as a shy and immature soldier, and he plays crucial role in the film as he appears on the screen for approximately 19 minutes.

It must be stated that this film heavily relies on dialogues and for this reason a close examination of the dialogues is necessary in order to realize Kiarostami’s depiction of Kurds. Driving his car on the outskirts of Tehran, Badi encounters a soldier and decides to give him a lift to his barracks. It is Badi who starts and dominates the conversation and asks endless questions to the soldier. The seemingly immature and shy Kurdish soldier constantly avoids looking at Badi’s face. The soldier usually looks ahead or puts his head down because he is an introvert. Throughout the scene the dominant character is Badi whereas the Kurdish soldier just gives short answers and tries to speak as short as possible. The implication with his shyness would have something to do with the lack of trust between Kurds and Persian ethnicities of Iran. What is also interesting is that Badi does not ask the name of the Kurdish soldier but instead says:

Then Badi asks the soldier where he is from. The shy Kurdish soldier stops one second and in a different manner; little bit proud, little bit anxious answers: “Kurdistan”.

B: “Are you in the army there?”KS: “Yes.”B: “Will you stay here or go back after?”KS: “I’ll go back to home.”B: “Back to Kurdistan?”KS: “Yes”B: “Good.”B: “What did you do in Kurdistan?”KS: “I was a farmer.”

Interestingly, when he offers a well-paid job to the soldier he does not even tell what the job is about albeit the soldier asks. Badi drives up to the hill and stops at a certain point and gets out of the car. He tells the Kurdish soldier to come out too, but the soldier is still anxious and stays in the car. Then he tells the Kurdish soldier that he is going to stay in the hole and commit suicide there. What he wants from the soldier is to come early in the morning and call his name out, if he answers he wants the soldier to take him out, if there is no answer however; he should trow 20 spade of earth on Badi. What is more, he offers very good money for this job. The soldier nervously rejects the offer and asks Badi to take him to his barracks. At the end Badi gets angry and gives a lecture to the Kurdish soldier.

Badi: “Where are you from?”Kurdish soldier: “Kurdistan”Badi: “You are a Kurd. A Kurd has to be brave. You people have fought so many wars, known such sufferings. Your village have been decimated.”Becoming more anxious the soldier opens the door and runs down the hill.

Abbas Kiarostami’s use of Kurdish soldier is crucial for it represents the Kurdish ethnicity of Iran. But what is interesting is that the Kurdish boy is a soldier. Why has Kiarostami chosen a Kurdish soldier? It is out of question that Kiarostami’s preference of Kurdish, Afghani and Azerbaijani characters is to acknowledge the multicultural formation of the Iranian society. (Elena, 166) From my point of view, by choosing a Kurdish character Kiarostami, in a way, acknowledges the Kurdish identity, but by choosing the Kurdish character as a soldier Kiarostami highlights the way Kurds are seen by Persians and Iranian state. What I mean is that in general the states that govern the Kurds have always seen and still see the Kurds as sentry. A Turkish proverb says: “Alavere dalavere Kurt Mehmet nöbete!” It would be no use of translating this proverb into English word by word, but it means that the ruling states only remember Kurds when they need sentry. The use of a Kurdish soldier instantly reminded me of that Turkish proverb. The forgotten Kurds are sometimes described as “brave warriors” when the ruling states need soldiers to wage a war. I think the use of a Kurdish soldier denotes the Persian majority’s look at Kurds. In the film, to some extent, Kiarostami critisizes that kind of “orientalist” look by showing how strange Badi’s treatment of the Kurdish soldier is. Badi is the dominant character, asks all the questions, praises the military and by his flattering, tries to convince the Kurdish soldier to help him in committing suicide, an act, which is both from cultural and religious perspective unacceptable in Iran.

In my mind, as far as Badi’s manner towards the Kurdish soldier is concerned, it is clear that Badi’s manner symbolizes Persian majority, “the true Iranians”. So to me the use of Kurdish soldier and the other ethnicities by Kiarostami in A Taste of Cherry, in a way, is to criticize the Iranian society and tate’s behaviour towards the ethnicities that makes the Iranian society what it is today. What is more, “this film contains aspects of self-portraiture”. (Cheshire, www.indyweek.com) So it could be said that Badi is both a reflection of Kiarostami and the Iranian society. It is not only Badi who is desperate and unhappy but Kiarostami and the Iranian society also. For this reason it could be said that the film is also a self-criticism of Kiarostami, personified as Badi’s character in the film.

Another significant point in the conversation between Badi and the Kurdish soldier is the name Kurdistan. The name Kurdistan is mentioned several times in the film. From my point of view the repetition of the word “Kurdistan” reinforces the reality of Kurdistan.

On the other hand, Kiarostami, by deliberately leaving some facts untold and not shown, creates a lot of room for the audiences to make their own interpretations. For example one of the most important lines of Badi is that:

“You people have fought so many wars, known such sufferings. Your village have been decimated.”

Indeed the Kurds suffered many massacres under the cruel regime of four governing states that control the Kurdish areas. Nevertheless Kiarostami does not provide more information on this point. What kind of sufferings the Kurds have experienced, who decimated their villages, why did they fight so many wars and against whom? Of course these are the points about which Kiarostami wants the audiences to think after seeing the film.

The Wind Will Carry Us

The Wind Will Carry Us is set in a remote Kurdish village, Siah Dareh, in Iranian Kurdistan and shot in Persian language with some Kurdish dialogues as well. Even though it takes place in a Kurdish village, the film does not focus on the Kurdish village or villagers. In this film it is important to understand why Kiarostami has chosen the Kurdish village as a location and how he treats that location and the Kurdish villagers.

Therefore I will try to provide relevant information for these aspects of the film but before that it would be appropriate to provide succinct synopsis of the film.

In The Wind Will Carry Us, a group of men go to a remote Kurdish village in Iran, to film a traditional funeral ceremony; there they wait for the death of an old woman, Malek Hanum. Most of the crew members never appear on the screen accept the lead character Behzad, a middle aged Persian man who is not so attractive and sympathetic. At the end of the film, the crew leaves the village without being able to get any footage of the funeral ceremony. Later in the film we learn that the funeral ceremony is significant because the village women, in order to show their sorrow and to gain social status, scream and scratch their faces.

Kurdish village as a location; Iranian Kurdistan is different to Tehran

First of all it is important to investigate why Kiarostami has chosen the Kurdish village as the location. As said above, the chosen location, by which a director expresses his ideas, has significant function in a film. In The Wind Will Carry Us, which is shot from the protagonist’s perspective, Kurdish village provides a perfect landscape for the film. Kiarostami’s interest with the Kurdish village is possibly related to his “curiosity” about Iranian Kurdistan, and his obsession with nature. The director states that he chose the Kurdish village because the original story, written by Mahmud Aydin, takes place in a Kurdish village too. He adds that he did not know the Kurdistan region and just wanted to see with his own eyes “what lay behind that name, “Kurdistan”, which has attracted so much attention in our social and political lives. But there was no direct political motive.” (Elena. 164) Yet, as said by Alberto Elena, in an interview Kiarostami implicates the choice of Kurdish village has a political connotation. “This is a people that live in my country, in a region I didn’t know. A people who can withstand anything, be it natural disaster or other kinds of problems. You can’t say that’s not political. Obviously, when we talk about their lives, we are also providing important information.” (Elena, 164) From my point of view, to a degree, Kiarostami either deliberately or unconsciously draws the audiences’ attention to the situation of Kurds and Kurdistan.

The way Kiarostami represents the landscape and the Kurdish village are attention grabbing too. For example the film opens with a view from a hill; from a distance in a wide angle shot a car is seen on a zigzag and dusty road. The landscape seems desolated, a reddish or brownish land along with rare single trees. Simultaneously a conversation between several unseen men inside the car is heard. The unseen men are looking for a village, Siah Dareh, and as they go further the landscape becomes greener. This is not a conventional establishing shot of a film, for it continues more than five minutes, By keeping that scene so long and just showing the landscape I think Kiarostami praises Kurdistan’s nature and landscape. For the first three minutes and eight seconds no one appears on the screen and then presumably a Kurdish woman appears working in a field. She is seen from the perspective of the unseen men inside the car. They ask her the direction of the village and drive away, but one of them says “Women work like men here.” From this line we understand that they have come to a “different” place, namely to Iranian Kurdistan. I think this line is crucial. As film crew approaches the Kurdish village the camera shows us the Kurdish landscape for approximately five minutes to emphasize its difference. Furthermore the difference is also revealed by the line “Women work like men here”.

Obviously, by showing this Kiarostami makes it clear that the film is going to take place in a different territory. Likewise, what is visually most striking and beautiful is the scene in which the village doctor and Behzad are seen riding on a motorbike on the dusty village road winding in and around the spectacular looking fields towards the end of the film. The landscape is amazing, shown in a wide angle; the colours of nature are stunning and heart-warming. To me this scene is both celebration of life, nature and celebration of Kurdish village. Similarly, the scene that shows the houses from a low angle is remarkable. The houses seem like a big castle. The image of the Kurdish village in Kiarostami’s film is reminiscent to the Kurdish villages of Bahman Ghobadi’s films, a Kurdish director from Iran. Siah Dareh (Black Valley) is a typical, ordinary Kurdish village. The narrow streets of the village are characteristic of Kurdish villagers. The houses are so close to each other that some of them look like they have been built on top of each other. “Grazing cows, sheep and goats. Women still making fresh cream, butter and cheese the old way- by swinging and shaking milk in a goat skin. And baking fresh bread over Saj or in Tandur. Tomatoes sun dried on roofs.” (Jonroy. www.newrozfilm.com) All these pictures are the associating imagery of Kurdish villages that are represented in Kiarostami’s film.

Also, I would like to say that the choice of Kurdish village as a location in The Wind Will Carry Us could have different meanings for Kurdish and non-Kurdish viewers. For the Persians and all the other non-Kurdish viewers it could mean alienation or dislocation, for they are being subjected to a relatively unknown location, whereas for the Kurdish viewers the Kurdish village could create a sense of self-assurance as they are being subjected to something familiar.

The relationship between Behzad and Kurdish villagers is another important aspect of The Wind Will Carry Us, for it reveals the Persians’ approach towards the Kurdish minority of Iran. What is an important feature of this relationship is that throughout the film; the film crew, especially Behzad, do not socialize much with the villagers. The Kurdish villagers are predominantly subjected to Behzad’s gaze in the whole film.

What is crucial is the conversation between the unseen crew members and Kurdish boy. Taking Farzad in the car they tell him not to tell the villagers why they are in the village. During the whole conversation the crew members tease the Kurdish boy, and that sets the logic of the crew members’ strange and alienated behaviour in the whole film. To elaborate this point I think it is necessary to look at the conversations as this film too heavily relies on dialogues.

One of the unseen crew members says: “If people ask, say we are treasure hunter” and they start laughing. They even make the child repeat what he is supposed to say:

“Now I’ll pretend to be someone else. Why are they here?”Kurdish boy: “Treasure hunting.” What we see here is that the Iranian city guys teach a Kurdish village boy what to say.An unseen man, supposedly Behzad:“That’s a pretty village. Did you hide your village so no one can take it away?”Kurdish boy: “No, we didn’t hide it. The old people built it here.”Behzad: “I see the old people hid it, so no one can take it?” Indeed, the appearance of the village from a distance is quite remarkable. Built on the slope of a hill, the village is hardly distinguishable from the landscape or mountain.Behzad: “Why do you think the old people built the village here?”Kurdish boy: “I wasn’t here when they came and built the village.”Behzad: “So you weren’t here in old times.”Another one adds: “Only in recent times.” Then they start to laugh again at the boy.

I think there is a kind of “superiority complex” with the way the crew members treat the Kurdish boy in this scene. It is maybe because they are educated urban Persians. In this there is a kind of “orientalism” in their behaviour: Persians (Westerners) versus Kurdish boy, (Easterners). Professor Hamid Dabashi says that Behzad’s and his team’s behaviour towards the Kurdish villagers is an indicator of “domestic colonialism” in Iran. Dabashi says: “Nativitism not only blinds Kiarostami’s generation of engaged intellectuals to the global configuration of power, but also makes them ignorant of subnational, domestic colonialism. The result, so horribly evident in The Wind Will Carry Us Away, is that the relation of power between national center and ethnic peripheries simply replicates that of the presumed metropolitan center and its implicit colonial periphery. There is not much difference between Iranian cultural colonization of ethnic minorities like the Kurds and global relations at large Tehran simply replicates what London, Paris, and Washington have done to their satellite peripheries.” (Dabashi, 257)

The meaning of stable scene

The stable scene is another crucial scene that once again reveals the oriental, “colonialist” manner of Behzad. The scene in which Behzad is seen at the house of Zeynep, the pit digger’s lover, is quite interesting in terms of dialogue and mis-en-scene. When Behzad steps into the barn where Zeynep is milking the animals the scene becomes black. For a few seconds nothing is seen. Then a girl carrying a light which doesn’t provide much illumination for the place barely appears though her face cannot be seen, while Behzad stays totally unseen. As soon as she starts milking, Behzad recites a poem from a famous Iranian poet. Then he asks Zeynep whether she knows Farough, the woman poet whose poem gives its name to the film. Although he asks for it Zeynep does not show her face. In the scene Zeynep does not talk much, she seems so innocent and introverted, like the Kurdish soldier in the Taste of Cherry. Her shyness and silence are a kind of reflection of the Kurdish culture once again. A young Kurdish woman would not show her face to a stranger just because he wants to see her, especially in a dark barn where they are alone.

This scene has created a lot of discussion among critics. Some critics talk about the meaning of the poem but not many critics mention the meaning of the scene for Kurds. When I first saw this scene I thought why Zeynep’s mother herself didn’t go down instead let Behzad go to the barn alone. The answer might have something to do with the villagers’ trust in Behzad. But why does the scene become dark for a few seconds? I think there is a sexual reference in this scene. This scene as a whole shows the interest of Behzad in Zeynep, a girl whose face he did not even see and a girl who has a lover, Youssef. It is Kiarostami’s way of denoting “sexual desire” under the restrictive censorship in Iran. Moreover there are some implications about the urban Persians abusing the trust of Kurdish villagers. The Kurdish villagers trust the film crew, they welcome them, give them food and fresh milk, even though the crew never tell the real reason of their being in the village. In this scene Zeynep is represented as an innocent, shy and defenceless girl whereas Behzad, although unseen, dominates the dark room by his voice, by reciting a poem, by projecting his gaze at the vulnerable Kurdish girl in a dark barn. There is a kind of voyeurism in Behzad’s gaze at Zeynep, at the same time reciting a poem he tries to influence the Kurdish girl. This scene indeed is so distressing. According to Professor Hamid Dabashi the “stable sequence is one of the most violent rape scenes in all cinema.” (Dabashi, 254) What is more Dabashi says: “…he cast the deadliest, powerbasing global gaze on it; the gaze of the First at the Third World, of the powerful at the powerless, of the center at the periphery, of the metropolitan at the cononized, of the Tehrani at the Kurd, imitating the Europeans at the height of colonialism. It is as if Kiarostami rescued the naked Iranian reality from its countervailing layers of native mataphysics to subject it to a more debilitating globalism.” (Dabashi, 254)

In the film Kiarostami shows how the urban Persians, including himself, are alienated from Iranian Kurdistan and from the country life. I say this because the film never lets us identify our selves with Behzad or other crew members, Behzad and his team are represented as non-attractive and kind of pragmatists who are just waiting for the death of the old woman. (Walsh, 1999) By this portrayal, the film structurally and stylistically alienates the audiences from the protagonist and film crew. Conversely, as far as seen on the screen, when it comes to the depiction of Kurdish villagers they are portrayed as affectionate, trustworthy and natural people. (Elena, 166) The woman owner of the teahouse tells Behzad: “Here no one will touch your car even if there’s gold in it.” For this reason, in contrast to Dabashi, I could say that Kiarostami, to a certain degree, makes criticism of the oriental behaviour of the film crew that is symbolizing Persians. This point will be explained in details below.

The dominant Kurdish woman or Iranian style feminism

Kiarostami criticise Behzad’s “oriental” attitude via a Kurdish woman. From my point of view the most crucial scene in The Wind Will Cary Us is the teahouse scene because it reveals the response of Kurdish villagers to the “superior” looking Persians. Astonished by seeing a woman managing a teahouse, Behzad says: “It’s the first time I’ve seen a lady serving tea.” This line makes connotation to the difference between Kurdish and Iranian women. Behzad, obsessed with his sense of “superiority”, is astonished when he sees a Kurdish woman working in the field, another managing the teahouse of the village, and a little Kurdish boy reciting a poem. All his astonishments indicate how he is alienated from the country life and how he is unaware of Kurdish people’s culture. Nonetheless the most crucial aspect of this scene is Taj Dawlet’s answer to Behzad’s perplexity. In my opinion, this scene is a feminist criticism of Iranian intellectuals. What is noteworthy is that even the famous feminist film critic Laura Mulvey does not talk about the representation of Kurdish woman in this film. (Mulvey, Sight and Sound) I think it would be better to look at these dialogues more closely.

Taj Dawlet: “What planet do you come from?” Behzad is more bewildered by the woman’s question and lowers his eyes slowly.Taj Dawlet: “Who serves tea to your father?”Behzad looks like a child says: “My mother.”

Taj Dawlet: “Then why say you haven’t seen a lady serving tea? Women have three jobs. Work during the day, serve tea in the evening, and keep company at night…I don’t mean your mother.” Behzad feeling ashamed of himself and shocked by the woman’s self-confident answers and cannot say anything except “Thank you”.

What we see here is that Behzad is lectured by a middle aged Kurdish woman, probably uneducated, this I think is a kind of “Iranian style” feminism. Interestingly the scene does not end here and the camera shows the Kurdish woman telling an unseen driver not to park in front of her teahouse as the truck’s fume disturbs her customers. Observing her, Behzad’s astonishment increases. Then a man sitting on another table interrupts with the woman and a discussion starts between this man and Taj Dawlet on the “third job” of the men. More astonished by this discussion Behzad takes a picture of Taj Dawlet but instantly she tells him not to take her picture. She is so self-confident and so dominant. Her stand and appearance are extraordinary and to my mind this scene is in effect praising Kurdish women. This scene reveals the role of Kurdish woman in the Kurdish society. The first woman we saw was working in the field and now we see a Kurdish woman operating the teahouse of the village. Besides later in the film a Kurdish woman is seen working on the balcony of her house right after giving birth the night before. What is noteworthy is that all three women astonish the outsiders.

Self-criticism?

On the other hand what I think is that, The Wind Will Carry Us, like The Taste of Cherry, partly makes a self-criticism of Kiarostami, since Behzad is a self-reflection of the director. (Rosenbaum. www.chicagoreader.com) I say this due to the change in Behzad’s behaviour. For example towards the end of the film, after telling off Farzad and probably feeling guilty, Behzad is seen apologizing twice to Farzad, though Farzad does not accept his apology. (Kurds are actually well-known for their stubbornness.) Behzad’s apology indicates that he has changed. At the end of the film Behzad seems impressed by the life of Kurdish villagers, and becomes more affectionate towards the villagers. He has found something he had lost, namely his “humanity”; the missing link with the country life and villagers. Also Behzad, to some degree gives his superiority complex and biases up. “Now he has found a new way of looking at the world…ready to accept the enigma ‘otherness’.” (Bergala, in Elena. 159) The change is especially obvious in the scene in which the pit collapses on the digger, Yousef. Behzad rushes to the village to get some help, and he even lends his car to the villagers to take Yousef to a hospital. Then we see him on a motorbike with the village doctor in-between beautiful looking fields, but interestingly it is the village doctor who recites a poem this time. From my perspective this change in Behzad is a kind of Kiarostami’s self-criticism.

Signifying Kurdish culture

In terms of signifying Kurdish culture the emphasis on studying, Kurdish language and the fate of Kurds are crucial. In the film Farzad is a guy who is obsessed with studying. As far as I am concerned, the desire of education or schooling is a simple feature of Kurdish culture. In the film the repetition of the dialogues between Farzad and Behzad on Farzad’s schooling emphasises the importance of education for the Kurds. For Kurdish villagers and even for all Kurds the only way to overcome the poverty and restriction they are experiencing is schooling. I would also like to state that in Kurdistan any educated person is a “big!” and “precious person” in the eyes of Kurdish villagers who are deprived of adequate education. Also, Zeynep too, pit digger’s lover, makes references to the importance of education for the Kurds. In the scene where Behzad leaves the barn, Zeynep asks how many years schooling did the writer of poem have. I think Zeynep’s question is another reference to the importance of education for the Kurds.

Alienating Persian viewers, translation required!

Another interesting point from the film is that it reveals the difference between Kurdish and Persian language. This point is exposed via some conversation between Behzad and the Kurdish villagers. When Behzad arrives at the house in which the crew is going to stay, an unseen Kurdish woman tells something to Farzad in Kurdish; instantly Behzad demands translation from Farzad. These kinds of translations occur several times in The Wind Will Carry Us and thus Kiarostami’s film represents and emphasizes one of the important aspects of Kurdish culture which differs from Persian/Iranian culture. In my opinion, by using some Kurdish dialogues for which Behzad demands translation, Kiarostami creates an alienated atmosphere for the Persian viewers as it is not only Behzad who requires translation but all non-Kurdish Iranians also. Another important aspect of using Kurdish dialogues is that it undermines the centrality of Persian language which is also the case in another Iranian film, Bashu; The Little Stranger, directed by Behram Beyzai in 1985 (Rahimieh. 241)

Kurds’ “rope of fate is woven black”

A as one of the most important moment of the film; on the way to Farzad’s school, walking in a narrow street Behzad asks Farzad why the villages name is “Siah Darreh/Black Valley”, while all the houses appear to be white. Farzad says: “Our ancestor chose the name.” Then Behzad recites a poem “Once your rope of fate is woven black…” This line from the poem makes such a strong reference to the ill-fate of Kurds. Kurds are not free, they cannot govern their territory because their “rope of fate is woven black.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be stated that because of Kiarostami’s “half-finished cinema” and the level of ambiguities in his films, interpretations of his films differ immensely amongst individuals. For this reason, although it looks like there are contradictions at first glance, what I see after analysing his two films in terms of his portrayal of Kurdish people and Kurdish village was that his films both have paradoxical features. On the one side he is being “oriental” towards Kurds as a Persian director who is represented by the protagonists of his films, and on the other to a degree he is criticising the alienated, oriental manner of Persian’s towards the minority Kurds. This contradictory feature of his films and his conflicting portrayal of Kurds could stem from Kiarostami’s own personal reality. In these two films to some extent he both represents the Kurds through the eyes of Persian majorities including himself , and at the same time he criticise that “oriental” look by depicting the Kurds as sympathetic, innocent, “working like men” and self-confident people who astonish the outsiders.

Finally I must state that that one cannot draw concrete conclusions or interpretations about Kiarostami’s films because as he has noted, his style of filming is “half-made cinema” therefore any interpretation in regard to his films would be “half-made”. “It's impossible to tell whether or not his films have been staged” (Anderson, www.combustiblecelluloid.com) Nevertheless, it could be said that in these two films his portrayal of Kurds has to some extent, been effective in showing how Kurds are in real life.

Works Cited

1- Anderson, Jeffrey M. The Hills Are Alive. Review of The Wind Will Carry Us.